


Brace Yourself

by natural_by_design



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gender-Neutral Pidge, Keith is a socially inept dork, Lance is a hot mess, M/M, probably slightly OOC sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 21:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13843383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natural_by_design/pseuds/natural_by_design
Summary: Lance sees aliens with some particular bracelets and is inspired to make some for his friends (and especially an angsty emo teen)





	Brace Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first official work in this fandom (yikes), so we'll see how this goes...I rated it teen b/c of like three swear words, btw (better safe than sorry, right?).  
> ALSO!  
> This was all inspired when I stumbled upon this super cute comic by @bumblevip (tumblr) and I'm posting the link here because it's adorable and you need to check it out. <https://bumblevip.tumblr.com/post/170963145240/keef-doesnt-know-but-lenz-used-to-give-a-lot-of>
> 
> Please leave comments/kudos/all that jazz. Enjoy!

Keith Kogane was confused.  
“What is it?” Lance asked, walking up beside him and poking his shoulder.  
Keith jumped. “What do you mean?”  
“You keep frowning at the aliens like you expect them to bite you. You do realize we just signed a peace treaty, right?”  
Keith turned purposefully blank eyes toward his fellow paladin. “I’m aware of that, yes. It’s not that I expect them to attack us, it’s just…” He gestured to a pair of passing aliens. “Look at their wrists.”  
Lance gave them a passing glance. “So they wear bracelets; what of it?”  
Keith rolled his eyes. “I meant look at the colors. Some of them have matching ones.”  
“Keith.” If Keith had been paying attention, he would have heard the thinly veiled amusement in Lance’s tone.  
His attention, however, was still focused on the surrounding aliens. “It’s not that I’m worried,” he mused, ignoring the boy beside him entirely. “It seems a little off, is all.”  
“Keith.”  
“Like maybe it’s some sort of categorizing system for different classes?”  
“Keith!” With a jerk, Keith turned to face Lance. He was met with a grin and shining blue eyes. “Keith, they’re friendship bracelets.”  
“Wha—” He gave Lance a narrow look. “How do you know?”  
Lance laughed and slung a companionable arm over Keith’s shoulders. “I thought they were the absolute shit when I was younger. Trust me, I would recognize those anywhere, regardless of weird alien makers.”  
Keith tensed at the touch, but he didn’t remove Lance’s arm. “Surely friendship bracelets aren’t a universal thing.”  
“Well, why not?” Lance asked. “Friendship is. And accessories, so together you get—” He swept his other arm out in a wide gesture to encompass the braceleted beings around them.  
“Yeah, but the idea of it.” Keith argued. “Like, these probably aren’t made with the same intent that the people from Earth make theirs with.”  
“Did you miss the whole thing about friendship being universal?”  
Keith rolled his eyes. “Piss off.”  
Somebody cleared their throat behind the two of them. Lance let go of him, and they both turned to face the newcomer.  
It was Hunk, looking back at them with a strange, almost apologetic expression. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, looking at Lance. Something passed between the two paladins that Keith didn’t understand. “Shiro wants us heading back to the ship.”  
Lance nodded. “Sure. We’ll walk back with you.” He started walking, looping his arm through Hunk’s as he passed him.  
Keith followed wordlessly.

For the next couple of days, he didn’t see too much of Lance. He saw him for training, obviously, and their eating schedules overlapped more than once, but he wasn’t around the way he usually was.  
Keith wasn’t concerned, exactly. Whenever he did see Lance, the other boy was still quick to start harassing him, and he seemed generally fine, but…  
The mystery-that-wasn’t-really-a-mystery was solved on the fourth day after Lance had begun acting weird. Keith was in the kitchen, eating a bowl of goo before heading up to the training deck for a quick early morning session, when Lance waltzed in.  
Keith almost dropped his spoon. “Am I hallucinating? You’re never up this early.”  
Lance rolled his eyes and hopped up to sit on the counter, long legs swinging. “Relax, man.”  
Keith scowled. “Don’t ‘relax, man’ me.”  
Lance laughed. “But you’re so fun to tease.”  
“Mhm.” Keith took another bite, warily watching Lance. “You want something, don’t you?”  
He gasped, although Keith suspected that he wasn’t really offended. His suspicion was confirmed a second later as Lance dropped the act and slid down off of the counter. “Okay, yeah. I want something.” He took a step closer. “Close your eyes.”  
Keith hesitated. “Why?”  
Lance rolled his eyes. “You trust me, don’t you? Just do it, dude.”  
Keith did trust him, despite all of the conflicts and…unsaid feelings (Keith really needed Pidge to create a let-me-stop-having-a-fat-crush-on-Lance device as soon as possible) that lay between them. With a sigh, he closed his eyes.  
A moment later, he felt the bowl and spoon being taken gently out of his hands. “What are you doing?” He grumbled. “I’m not done eating that.”  
“Nothing’s stopping you from finishing it in a minute or two,” came the reply. “I’m sure you can survive until then. Now, hold up your hands.”  
Confused, Keith tucked in his elbows and held his arms straight out in front of him, like he was preparing to do a really bad version of the robot. Lance huffed out a laugh. “That’ll work. Hold still.”  
Keith’s eyebrows rose. “Are you tying string to my wrists?”  
He felt quick, nimble fingers brush the underside of his wrist, and his pulse jumped. “Let’s go with that, mullet.”  
Silence reigned as Lance continued doing whatever it was that he was doing, and Keith shifted awkwardly on his feet. “So, uh, why are you doing…this?”  
He could practically hear Lance’s lazy shrug. “Everybody’s done so much, you know? For me and for the universe. It’s not like there’s much else I can do, so I guess this is my way of saying thank you.”  
Wait. What? Frowning, Keith opened his mouth to (adamantly) disagree, but Lance interrupted him before he could even start. “There we go. You can open your eyes.”  
Keith opened them, a bit apprehensively. “What did you—oh.” He stared down at his wrists in shock. “Lance, these are…good. Really good.” Decorating his arms were intricately woven bracelets of all patterns and colors.  
“Yeah?” When he looked up, he found Lance grinning at him, bright blue eyes cheerful and crinkled at the corners. “We were talking about friendship bracelets the other day, and I thought ‘why not see if I can still make them?’” His smile faded slightly. “I know they’re only stupid bracelets and won’t actually help anyone, but—”  
This again? Keith reached forward to grab Lance’s hand and squeezed until the other boy was looking at him. “I like them,” he said firmly. “Thank you.”  
Lance smiled, somehow even brighter than before, and part of Keith’s heart melted. “You’re welcome.”

Later, Keith found out that Lance had adorned the rest of the crew as well.  
He had decided to hit the training deck before dinner and, as a result, was late. When he entered the dining hall, hair still dripping from his hasty shower, only Shiro and Hunk bothered to acknowledge him. Lance and Pidge were too busy arm-wrestling, and Allura and Coran were too busy observing.  
“Sorry I’m late,” Keith said, sliding into his seat beside Shiro. On his other side, Lance slammed Pidge’s arm against the table and yelled triumphantly.  
“It’s fine, as long as you’re still remembering to eat something.” Shiro said, smiling. His eyes drifted lower, and his expression turned carefully neutral. “Did you shower with those on?”  
Keith froze, looking down at where his bracelet-covered wrists rested on the table for all to see, his jacket slung carelessly over the back of his chair. “Was I not supposed to?”  
Shiro laughed and shook his head, breaking the sudden tension between them that Keith didn’t fully understand. “No, I’m sure they’re fine. I was just curious.” He rolled up his sleeve, exposing his own bracelet. “Lance gave me one too, actually.”  
Keith studied it. It was black, with white polka dots, which somehow seemed incongruously suiting for Shiro. It was also…rougher, as if Lance had made it before really getting back into the swing of things.  
“Admiring my work, Keith?” Lance’s sudden input to the conversation made Keith jump.  
He turned his head to glare at the blue paladin. “So what if I am?”  
“Yeah, thanks again, man!” Hunk piped up. He gestured to the braided yellow bracelet on his own hand.  
“They really are quite beautiful,” added Allura. Hers was white and pink, and made Keith think of cherry blossoms and pearls.  
Pidge had a green, blocky bracelet.  
Coran’s was orange, blue, and silky looking.  
Keith turned back to Lance. “Where’s yours? You don’t match the rest of us.”  
“Neither do you,” Pidge muttered with a pointed glance at Keith’s rows of bracelets. Keith ignored them.  
Lance laughed. “They were a gift, Keith, not a newest addition to the uniform. It was the least I could do,” he mumbled, and Keith got the sharp sinking feeling that Lance wasn’t just saying that, as if he believed the least was all that he could do.  
“Let’s go for a walk.” Keith replied, grabbing Lance’s arm and hauling him out of his chair. “Just real quick.”  
Lance’s cries fell on unsympathetic ears as he was dragged out of the room.  
Outside in the hallway, Keith let go of Lance’s arm and leaned against the wall. Lance stayed in front of him, flushed and probably angry. “What do you want, Kogane?”  
Keith had no idea how to say what he really wanted to, so he flailed for a decoy. “Why’d you give me so many extra bracelets?”  
Lance threw his hands up. “What was so hard about asking me that in there?” His eyes scanned Keith’s face, and he smiled. “Think real hard and you’ll figure it out.”  
Keith took a deep breath, then plunged in. “I want you to stop talking.”  
“What?”  
He gave a little growl of frustration. “Not completely. Just…it’s like every other word out of your mouth lately has been something negative about yourself and I hate it.”  
Lance eyed his clenched fists. “Why’re you so angry?”  
Keith’s temper snapped. “Because, Lance!” He shouted, grabbing the other boy’s shoulders and shaking him slightly. “I’m tired of you acting like you’re worthless. Don’t you understand how valuable you are, how much you mean to everyone? You keep us together, keep us from going insane, and…and…you make a damn good friendship bracelet.”  
Wide blue eyes met his. “You like the bracelets that much?”  
Keith huffed—half amused, half annoyed—and let his hands fall back to his sides. “That’s what you got out of that?”  
If Keith didn’t know any better, he might have said that the great Lance McClain looked shy. “No, no. I’m sorry. I—thank you. That’s, like, really nice of you, Keith.”  
Keith crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s no need for you to sound so shocked.”  
Lance laughed, a little nervously, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I wasn’t trying to, I promise. I just…I just was wondering if I could kiss you.”  
Kiss you.  
Lance wanted to kiss him.  
Lance was also still waiting for an answer, a fact that made Keith blurt “yes” without really thinking it through, and now his cheeks were flaming and he wanted to run far, far away and die in a hole and—  
—and Lance’s lips were on his.  
Keith grabbed Lance’s shirt, pulling him closer (because how had he ever lived without this?), and Lance responded by making his sound and sliding his fingers into Keith’s hair to tug lightly on the strands.  
After never or forever or somewhere in between Keith reeled back, his fists still clenched in Lance’s shirt. “Do the—do the extra bracelets mean you like me?”  
Lance laughed and pulled him back in for another kiss. “Oh, you have no idea.”


End file.
